Ithaca College

Reza Baraheni: Readings and Conversation
"The most important living writer of Iran"
Internationally admired poet and novelist, now living in exile

Wednesday, April 2, 2003
7:30 p.m.
Clark Lounge, Egbert Hall, Ithaca College
Free and open to the public

Reza Baraheni has published 50 books, in both English and Farsi, the official language of Iran. Another 20 books have been suppressed or confiscated by current Iranian authorities. An advocate of democratic freedoms and the rights of linguistic minorities, he was jailed and tortured under the former Shah. His release followed publicity generated by admiring fellow writers around the world, such as Allen Ginsberg. After several years of exile in the U.S., Baraheni returned to Iran after the Shah's overthrow to found a democratically oriented writers' association. He was jailed again, and some colleagues in their movement were put to death by firing squad. Later, stripped of his professorial position, Baraheni taught literary theory, feminist literature, and creative writing from an apartment building basement. He ultimately fled to Canada to escape right wing death squads.

Reza Baraheni will be in residence in the City of Ithaca and at Cornell for the next two years, sponsored by the Ithaca, City of Asylum (ICOA). ICOA is a partnership involving Cornell University, Ithaca College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, an anonymous foundation, and individual citizens, working with the International Parliament of Writers to offer a haven and the chance to continue writing to a distinguished writer suffering political exile.

Sponsored by Ithaca City of Asylum and the Ithaca College Department of Writing

• Information about Reza Baraheni
• President of PEN Canada
• Faculty profile, University of Toronto
• Exile poem of the gallery
  
• Information about Ithaca City of Asylum

Contributed by Barbara Adams, Department of Writing